The Crime of Caste in Our Country

by Benjamin Rush Davenport

It is impossible to ascribe this change to increased emigration and the fact that recently naturalized citizens voted the Democratic ticket. In the first place, there is no such unanimity of love for the Democratic party, as a party, in the breasts of the emigrants who have been recently naturalized, as to account for their voting unanimously the Democratic ticket. Again, the number of foreigners who have been made, by naturalization, citizens of the United States within the last four years is not sufficient to account for this tremendous revolution; and, further, the greatest gains made by the Democratic nominee were not made in those sections wherein the greatest flood of emigration has poured. Therefore, it seems conclusive that the nominee of the Democratic party received the support of Americans who had formerly voted with the Republican party.

Now, upon what ground can this general conversion rest? It was not done by the flaring of trumpets, by oratory, or reasoning upon the issues as set forth in the platforms of the two parties. It is hard to imagine many voters being convinced of the advantages that would arise under a system of State banks. It would seem that that would convince few, if any, that the Democratic party was more desirable than the Republican party, to have in charge of the finances of the nation. That, as an abstract principle, “Free Trade,” or “tariff for revenue only,” converted this large number of former Republican voters, is a statement not justified by the vote cast in different States, nor is it possible to find one man, in each hundred who voted the Democratic ticket, who can intelligently discuss the subject of Protection and Free Trade and give satisfactory reasons for preferring Free Trade. The subject is a perplexing one, even to those who have devoted much time and study to political economy.

To show a lack of unanimity among the high priests of Democracy on the subject of Protection and Free Trade, one has only to refer to the record of the late and eminent Samuel J. Randall, who was a most pronounced Protectionist, yet a sterling member of the party known as the Democratic party. On the other hand, we have the Hon. John G. Carlisle, Senator from the State of Kentucky, who represents ultra Free Tradeism. Even the same difference exists between those two great journals, in which are supposed to be mirrored Democratic doctrines and principles: the New York Sun, whose editorial is here quoted, which is an absolute Protection organ, and the New York World, whose editorial is also quoted, the last-named paper being an absolute Free Trade organ.

It would seem perfectly apparent to even the most benighted mind that, with such divergence of opinion among the old-line Democrats, a doctrine not believed in unanimously by them, could make but few converts from the ranks of the party pledged to Protection.

Free Trade and State banks were the two leading cries in the campaign of the Democrats, joined to which was occasionally heard the cry of fear of a Force Bill.

The worthy New York Sun would, doubtless, attribute largely the victory to its efforts in calling the attention of the public to the Force Bill and the danger of its passage if the Republicans should gain the control of the Federal Government. As a matter of fact, however, the people of the Union had seen the Republicans in power, controlling both branches of the National legislature, and also the executive department of the Government; yet, the people have seen the Lodge Bill, known as the Force Bill, pass the Republican House of Representatives, and die a doleful death in the Republican Senate, killed by the votes of Republican Senators. Therefore, that part of the Democratic policy which indicated a strenuous objection to the passage of a Force Bill, if put in power, could not possibly have a great deal of effect in the missionary work done by the Democratic managers. Those Republicans who voted for the nominee of the Democratic party, at the last election, could not have been influenced to do so by the arguments advanced with regard to the Force Bill.

They had seen Senators of their own, the Republican party, kill a Force Bill in the Senate of the United States, and they had no reason to believe but that a recurrence of murder would take place should another Force Bill pass the House of Representatives and be sent to a Republican Senate. These three leading features of the Democratic party appear most prominently in the campaign. Can any fair man say that any one or all of them influenced those Republicans who voted for Grover Cleveland to change from the Republican party and become members of the Democratic party? Is there anything in any one of them or all of them jointly to make a man forsake old associates, old ideas and faiths, and to associate himself, by reason of conviction, with things that are new?

It could not be a matter of reason. It was a matter of sentiment. And (again repeating) no one seems to understand that to be the case better than the President-elect. It was the sentiment of detestation upon the part of the masses—the “Common People”—for that assumption of class distinction, the attempted introduction of “caste” in our country by those who are allied to, or who had forced themselves upon, the Republican party.

The cold and clammy arms of “caste,” in which the Republican party was encircled, doomed it to defeat. All of the great virility with which it was endowed when, as Abraham Lincoln’s Republican party, it represented the “Common People,” was crushed out of it by this venomous python, so that when it faced, in 1892, the arrayed resentment of the “Common People,” it was but a shapeless, disfigured form, in which all the beauty, purity, and strength with which it was endowed at the time of its creation had ceased to exist. Had the Republican party retained the vigor that marked its young manhood before it became suffocated by this mass of putrid matter, called aristocracy, there would have been another story to tell of the election November 8, 1892.